Alcohol abuse continues to take a toll on Cape

BREWSTER -- Opiates and drug overdoses are in the headlines but alcohol is still the biggest killer on the Cape and Brewster is no exception.

Oxycodone, Fentanyl, methamphetamine, barbiturates, heroin, cocaine, marijuana and alcohol all take their toll in heath care, law enforcement, crime, treatment, unemployment and more.

“This is costing us $110,000 a year (in 2013),” declared Vaira Harik, Senior Project Manager at the Barnstable County Department of Human Services. “The lions share can be put to alcohol use, 17,000 people on Cape Cod are addicted to alcohol. Heroin use is 500 on Cape. Prescription painkillers and opioids is three to four times that.”

Harik was speaking at a Brewster Community Network forum on opiates at the Ladies' Library on Saturday. She wanted to broaden the discussion noting that over the last three years an estimated 18 Brewster residents have dies from alcohol related causes compared to three opiate overdose deaths,

“What we have is a grinding epidemic with alcohol use but a spike in opioids,” Harik noted. “People are dying in greater numbers from alcohol addiction but it is less spectacular and not sudden death.”

According to the county Human Services' estimates, there were 1,105 cases of addiction and abuse in Brewster in 2015, 783 of them relating to alcohol. Marijuana (159), opioids (85), heroin (21) and cocaine and other drugs (57) accounted for the rest.

“Marijuana use is the second largest addiction. This is not the stuff people grew up with. It is far more potent and unrecognizable,” Harik said. “So why opioids [a concern]? It’s a problem on fire. Now people are dying at a higher rate and deaths are increasing. Cape Cod has one of the highest rates of opiate abuse per capita in the state; the Berkshires are also high.”

While the above numbers are extrapolated from Capewide figures when people week treatment actual data can be nailed down. In 2014 140 Brewsterites were admitted for treatment preceded by 190 in 2013, 187 in 2012 and a 10-year high of 214 in 2011. Of those seeking help 58 percent were primarily dealing with alcohol in 2014. The numbers for drugs fluctuate year by year.

“As pills are less available on the street people with a need for substance abuse will tend towards what is available,” Harik said.

While alcohol is consistently a problem by 50 percent to 60 percent of the town’s admissions' opioids have accounted for as much as 29-percent (in 2011) and as little as 5 percent in 2014, that same year heroin peaked at 29 percent up from a low of 15 percent in 2011. Many reported multiple addictions. When that’s factored in 75 percent of the patients from Brewster reported using alcohol, 24 percent opioids, 18 percent cocaine, 36 percent heroin, 21 percent marijuana and 10 percent other drugs in 2014.

Harik noted that treatment receives the most funding with far less spent on prevention and recovery. Sam Tarplin of the PIER Recovery Center in Hyannis works with outreach. PIER stands for Positive Individuals Engaged in Recovery.

“We’re a safe place for people in early recovery, seeking shelter from the storm,” Tarplin said. “We offer curriculum and 12-step groups on site, Nar-Anon meetings for families. We offer life skills groups.”

In Brewster’s case, those seeking help for addiction in Brewster were split by sex (57 percent male), by employment (53 percent employed, 47 percent not) and by education (44 percent more than high school, 55 percent less). Fifty-seven percent had never been married, 17 percent were divorced and just 21 percent were married. Almost 39 percent had prior mental health issues.

“The 12-step program has a 5 percent to 20 percent success rate. I personally relapsed 10 times,” Tarplin explained. “If you ask why the almost universal answer is because they weren’t happy with something, either in their own lives or the way the world worked and they started using to escape that. It’s progressive alcohol and weed leads to pills and to heroin and cocaine.”

His experiences on both sides of the battle led Tarplin to offer a few suggestions.

“I would suggest you change the date to introduce people to treatment,” he reflected. “We wait till they overdose or have a car crash or something. I want to target them earlier on. From my experience you better chance of staying clean if you go home and get a job or go to school than if you sit around and play video games. In Falmouth we’ve tried to get a network of employers who employ people immediately.”

“There is no recovery center on this part of the Cape,” Tarplin pointed out.

The police and fire departments deal with cases here.

“Narcan is utilized in opiate overdose situations. We used it 10 times in 2015 and six times in 2016,” Brewster EMT Kevin Varley said. “Each year there was one fatality. The opiate crisis is a real thing.”

“There is a new protective custody law,” his brother police Officer Patrick Varley explained. “We can place a person into protective custody to bring them to a hospital if the Narcan wears off. Often times there’s a relation between crime and drugs and substance abuse.”

“A few towns follow up with a police officer and social worker after a person is discharged from the hospital,” Tarplin said.

Brewster is now one of those towns as it grapples with a nationwide problem.